Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Jimena, the only area municipality to be exempt from Council Tax increase

Other councils must apply 4 or 6% rises by law

CAMPO DE GIBRALTAR (Agencies) The central government has decreed that, in order to increase municipal incomes, there must be a generalized increase in the Impuesto de Bienes Inmuebles (Council Tax), a temporary measure for this year and next. IBI is now the main source of municipal finance as a dramatic downturn in new building throughout the country, so town halls everywhere are suffering from a lack of income from building licences and urban projects. But the decree does not apply to every municipality, nor even to every cadastral unit. Application of the decree will range from the complete exemption for Jimena to an increase for all urban buildings in Los Barrios and La Línea. The reason behind Jimena's exemption, and that of other councils outside the Campo, is>>>

IF YOU FIND THIS ARTICLE INTERESTING, USEFUL OR ENTERTAINING, PLEASE CONSIDER THE WORK, EFFORT AND COST IT TAKES TO BRING IT TO YOU. WE WOULD APPRECIATE A DONATION TO CONTINUE A FREE SERVICE.

that they raised their taxes between 2005 and 2007, at the top of the market.

It is expected that the rise will be about 10% for Los Barrios and La Línea (their valuations, or cadastral value -valor catastral- was revised before 2002) and Castellar, Algeciras, San Roque, and Tarifa's are calculated at 4% (revised between 2008 and 2011). There are no area municipalities that have to apply a 6% rise, which concerns only those whose revisions were carried out between 2002 and 2004.

In general terms, the increases will be applied to the top 50% residential buildings in terms of their revised valuation. However, increases will be applied everywhere (except Jimena), to other urban buildings such as garages, commercial properties and other uses, independent of their cadastral value.

Nevertheless, the percentages mentioned above apply only to the cadastral value, not necessarily to the bills themselves. As you know, IBI is calculated on the basis of a property's cadastral value, not on its last purchase or sale price, and therefore not on its actual market value. It is the job of the provincial government, Diputación Provincial, to collect the monies in the name of most of the area's councils. (This is a highly politicized thing that we don't need to go into here.)